More than two-thirds of European digital advertising leaders expect investment or revenue to increase over the next 12 months
Report calls for clearer measurement frameworks and more unified approaches across digital advertising
Brussels, Belgium, 15th January, 2026 - IAB Europe has today released its inaugural Attitudes to Digital Advertising Report, offering a comprehensive snapshot of a European digital advertising ecosystem that is growing in scale and sophistication, while continuing to face structural and operational challenges.
Building on more than a decade of insights from the long-running Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising study, the new report expands its scope to reflect the reality of today’s market, spanning display, video, Connected TV (CTV), and digital audio. The findings show an industry that is maturing and diversifying, but where progress is uneven across channels, formats, and stakeholder groups.
The survey was developed by IAB Europe’s Advertising and Media Committee and received over 170 responses between October and November 2025. Participants included advertisers, agencies, ad tech companies, and publishers, representing pan-European and global-with-European-remit roles, as well as professionals operating across more than 25 individual markets.
The findings of the report highlight a digital advertising landscape that continues to expand and mature, but where progress is uneven and structural challenges persist. As investment grows and emerging channels accelerate, the need for greater standardisation, clearer measurement frameworks, and improved operational consistency becomes increasingly urgent across the ecosystem - priorities that sit at the heart of the work of IAB Europe’s Advertising & Media Committee.
Key Findings from the Report:
Commenting on the findings of the report, IAB Europe’s Industry Development & Insights Director, Marie-Clare Puffett, said, “This report shows an industry that continues to grow, but where fragmentation is holding progress back. As investment increases and new channels scale, clearer measurement and more unified approaches will be essential. Addressing these challenges will require collaboration across the ecosystem to build trust, consistency, and long-term confidence in digital advertising.”
Wayne Tassie, Chair of IAB Europe’s Advertising & Media Committee, added, “Building on more than a decade of programmatic research, this expanded study captures the realities of today’s market, from growing investment in CTV and Retail Media to the accelerating impact of AI. By bringing together perspectives from across the ecosystem, it offers a clear and balanced view of where the industry stands, while reinforcing collaboration and supporting the continued growth and maturity of digital advertising across Europe.”
The findings of the report will inform and shape the ongoing work of IAB Europe’s Advertising and Media Committee, helping to guide future initiatives, best practices, and industry collaboration.
The full report can be downloaded from IAB Europe’s website here.
To find out more about our work and how you can get involved, please get in touch with our Industry Development & Insights Director, Marie-Clare Puffett at puffett [at] iabeurope.eu.
For all press enquiries, please contact IAB Europe’s Marketing & Communications Director, Lauren Wakefield at wakefield [at] iabeurope.eu.
An industry initiative from IAB Europe's Addressability & Measurement Working Group
The advertising ecosystem is in the middle of a structural shift. Signal loss, evolving regulation, and new technical constraints have pushed the industry to rethink how addressability, activation, measurement, and optimisation actually work in a privacy-first world. At the same time, the number of available solutions (both ID and ID-less) has grown rapidly, often faster than shared understanding.
Within the Addressability & Measurement Working Group (AMWG), we are tackling this problem by building a comprehensive Solution Mapping, a practical landscape that maps products and companies to concrete addressability and measurement use cases across the advertising lifecycle.
The AMWG Solution Mapping Matrix is designed to answer a simple but critical question: which solutions support which use cases?
With input from the Working Group, we finalised a shared set of use cases across five key areas:
These range from familiar capabilities like audience activation, contextual targeting, and campaign reporting, to more complex and emerging areas such as clean room–based planning, federated learning infrastructure, probabilistic cohorts, attention measurement, and machine-learning model training systems.Using this agreed-upon framework, we have already drafted an initial matrix for ID-less solutions. We are now applying the exact same use-case framework to ID-based solutions, so that the industry can compare approaches on a like-for-like basis.
Across committees, markets, and conversations, we see the same challenge: a lack of shared, practical knowledge about available solutions, the problems they solve, and how they are used, which slows adoption, creates confusion for publishers, advertisers, agencies, and platforms under growing regulatory and technical pressure, and this is why this work builds on the Addressability & Measurement Solutions Report to turn insights into something tangible and usable.
By grounding the discussion in clearly defined use cases, the Solution Mapping Matrix aims to:
Once both the ID and ID-less matrices are complete, the Working Group will:
Please review the shared document and add your company/products in the “ID Matrix” tab, selecting the appropriate use-case checkboxes. Examples are already included to guide you.
The deadline to participate is Friday, 6th February.
Your contribution will directly shape how the industry understands and advances addressability and measurement in a privacy-first era.
Specifically, we are looking for your help to add your company and/or products to the ID Matrix and select the relevant use-case checkboxes that your solution supports.
For additional information and questions, please reach out to:
Marie-Clare Puffett puffett [at] iabeurope.eu
Lucio Gagliardi gagliardi [at] iabeurope.eu
Brussels, Belgium, 9th January 2026 – IAB Europe welcomes the announcement by IAB Tech Lab of its Agentic Roadmap for Digital Advertising, unveiled on 6th January 2026.
As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded across the digital advertising value chain, shared frameworks that support interoperability, transparency, and responsible innovation will be indispensable. The Tech Lab initiative reflects growing industry interest in enabling more intelligent, automated interactions across buying, selling, and measurement environments, while maintaining trust, accountability, and choice.
IAB Europe has long supported the development of open, collaborative standards that help the market evolve in a way that works for advertisers, publishers, technology providers, and users alike. The industry already benefits from a strong foundation of shared, globally adopted standards. Initiatives that explore how agent-based systems can operate within a standards-based ecosystem build on this foundation. They provide a pragmatic and sustainable space for experimentation and learning for the industry, while strengthening the ecosystem through existing infrastructure.
As agent-enabled approaches develop, ensuring that advertiser and publisher intent can be expressed clearly and interpreted consistently across the open internet will remain a critical foundation for scalable, trustworthy automation.
“We see agentic technologies as part of a broader evolution in digital advertising”, said Townsend Feehan, IAB Europe CEO. “What matters most is that innovation continues to be guided by openness, interoperability, and respect for existing market structures and regulatory expectations - which latter will be conditioned by Europe’s AI Act and implementing measures. Constructive dialogue and coordination across initiatives will be key.”
IAB Europe looks forward to continued engagement with Tech Lab and the wider ecosystem as these discussions progress, and to contributing European market perspectives to the ongoing exploration of agentic workflows.
About IAB Europe
IAB Europe is the European-level association for the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem. Through its membership of national IABs and media, technology and marketing companies, its mission is to lead political representation and promote industry collaboration to deliver frameworks, standards and industry programmes that enable businesses to thrive in the European market
Brussels, Belgium - 9th January 2026: IAB Europe welcomes the ruling of the Belgian Market Court (part of the Brussels Court of Appeal) in relation to its appeal against the January 2023 decision by the Belgian Data Protection Authority (APD), which had validated IAB Europe’s action plan and triggered a 6-month timeframe for its implementation.
Because several measures proposed in the action plan stemmed from the APD’s assumption that IAB Europe acted not only as a joint controller for the processing of TC Strings but also for subsequent data processing - which was overturned by the Market Court’s prior ruling of 14 May 2025 - IAB Europe challenged the scope of the validation, which required implementation of modifications to the TCF outside the perimeter of its controllership.
The Market Court has now agreed with IAB Europe, finding that the APD’s decision to validate the action plan was legally flawed and annulling it accordingly. As a result, the APD will now have to take a new decision reflecting the narrower scope of IAB Europe’s joint controllership, as determined by both the European Court of Justice and the Market Court itself.
In addition, the Market Court found that the APD had violated IAB Europe’s right to be heard by adopting its decision of January 2023 without permitting IAB Europe to take position on it.
“We welcome this ruling by the Market Court and its clear confirmation of IAB Europe’s limited role in the TCF”, said Townsend Feehan, IAB Europe’s CEO. “It shows that several orders of the APD’s decision of February 2022 went too far, and that the scope of the decision of January 2023 was also too broad as a result. The ruling provides an opportunity for a reset, and we look forward to an exchange with the APD on the action plan as well as on the future evolution of the TCF, for the benefit of both users and TCF participants.”
Finally, the complainants who initiated the proceedings against the TCF had also appealed the APD’s decision to validate the action plan, arguing that they should have been involved in the procedure. The Market Court rejected these claims as unfounded.
An updated FAQ on the case may be consulted on IAB Europe's website here. IAB Europe will continue to keep the market updated on the case as the matter returns to the APD for further proceedings.
IAB Europe is launching a suite of market intelligence services that deliver data and analysis on major issues facing the digital advertising ecosystem in Europe. The new products are an extension of IAB Europe’s established role, providing data and insight through the widely regarded AdEx Benchmark Report. As the leading European-level association for the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem, IAB Europe has the market position and industry reputation to launch a compelling portfolio of services. We are looking for a digital marketer who has experience bringing B2B subscription products to market. This person should understand user journeys, website UX, and conversion tactics to help drive a successful launch in May 2026.
Scope of the role
Feeding into IAB Europe’s Marcoms team, the Marketing Consultant will bring their expertise in conversion marketing to develop the collateral needed to sell these services to customers in the digital advertising ecosystem and beyond. We are looking for someone to shape the tactics and create the copy across channels, including: the content and IA of the pages on IAB Europe’s website, product one-pagers, and templates for social media posts.
Expected project period: January-April 2026
Specific tasks
Qualifications
The ideal candidate will have previous experience in a similar role and possess the following criteria:
Location
The position is fully remote.
About IAB Europe
IAB Europe is a European-level industry association of national federations and corporate members active in digital advertising and marketing. Its mission is to promote Europe’s digital advertising & marketing industry through policy advocacy and the development of legal compliance tools and business standards, helping to ensure that advertising continues to finance a rich universe of online content & services, including independent media, that is accessible on terms that all citizens can afford. Through its direct corporate membership and that of its national federations, it represents some 3,000-4,000 companies across the advertising ecosystems, from advertisers and agencies to adtech vendors, publishers, broadcasters, eCommerce platforms, and retailers.
Submission of application
Interested candidates are invited to submit their CV, salary expectations and a cover letter to Amy Mazzola, Marketing & Events Director, IAB Europe - mazzola [at] iabeurope.eu
The Q&A brings together three industry leaders from our Retail & Commerce Media Committee to unpack what 2026 holds for Retail and Commerce Media. All agree the year will be pivotal: rapid market expansion, rising competition, and the blurring of Retail Media with search and programmatic will force retailers to differentiate through stronger collaboration, modernised infrastructure, and clearer value propositions.
AI emerges as a transformative force - not just for optimisation, but for reshaping the entire commerce layer, from automated operations to real‑time personalisation and even AI‑driven shopping decisions. Success will depend on retailers building trusted, interoperable data and tech foundations that allow AI to enhance the full customer journey.
Measurement remains the industry’s biggest hurdle and greatest opportunity. Progress hinges on shared definitions, aligned reporting frameworks, and cross‑stakeholder cooperation to build transparency, comparability, and confidence, especially around incrementality.
Looking ahead, the wish list of each leader centres on integration, collaboration, and maturity: unified omnichannel planning, stronger data partnerships, simpler tech, and a more committed buy‑side. If Europe can align around these priorities, it has the potential to set the global benchmark for a connected, accountable, and creatively ambitious retail media ecosystem.
A big thank you to the following contributors for sharing their thoughts:
Ollie Shayer, Sr Director, Global Strategy and Innovation, SMG
Lucie Laurendon, Product Marketing Director - Supply and Emerging Channels, Equativ
Lars Djuvik, CRO, Pentaleap
Ollie: “2026 will be a defining year for Retail Media. The market will continue to grow at pace, both in investment and in the volume of networks entering the space. That expansion brings enormous opportunity, but also a real challenge around differentiation. Retailers will need to move beyond capability checklists to articulate what makes their proposition truly distinctive. Success will depend on the ability to collaborate, to build meaningful partnerships with brands and agencies that focus less on channels and more on creating value together. The next phase of growth will come from clarity, creativity, and genuine collaboration.”
Lucie: “The coming year presents a critical turning point for the Retail Media industry. Omnichannel is not yet real and doesn’t deliver its promise to truly anchor the unified customer journey, as on-site, off-site, in-store, and CTV are managed by separate teams and tools.
But opportunities are strong as Retail Media is expected to continue growing fast in spend and networks in 2026. Retailers should collaborate on shared frameworks and definitions. Tech providers can support them with packaged offers to activate and leverage first-party data and unified reporting for omnichannel campaign visibility.
Off-site is becoming key to grow beyond the main point of purchase. It can expand faster with simpler tech and data activation. With AI coming into the market and the impact it may have on on-site traffic, off-site becomes an even stronger opportunity. It lets retailers reach their audiences everywhere and prepare for new behaviours. Many new formats are emerging, especially video and shoppable formats, which offer opportunities to drive performance and create differentiation.”
Lars: “I see the central challenge and opportunity for 2026 being the critical convergence of Retail Media, search, and programmatic channels, driven by intense market saturation and the proliferation of RMNs. For retailers to capitalise, they must move decisively to modernise their ad infrastructure. One way to do this is to shift away from legacy ad servers toward Real-Time Bidding (RTB)-native, lightning-fast solutions. These platforms must be engineered to fluidly accept unified demand from every possible avenue, including direct sales, proprietary APIs, and open programmatic exchanges, ensuring retailers capture budgets wherever advertisers choose to buy.”
Ollie: “AI will play a fundamental role in shaping the next phase of Retail Media’s evolution. Its potential extends far beyond optimisation. It will increasingly streamline the day-to-day operations of Retail Media Networks, automating planning, targeting, and reporting to free teams for more strategic work. This operational lift will allow networks to focus on what sets them apart: data, creativity, and customer experience. In parallel, AI will continue to enhance personalisation and insight, helping retailers better understand how shoppers engage and convert. The real opportunity lies in using AI not just to increase efficiency, but to elevate the quality and intelligence of the entire Retail Media ecosystem.”
Lucie: “AI is transforming the whole digital advertising ecosystem, including Retail and Commerce Media. Automating media planning, precise targeting, and complete reporting, while improving personalised ad delivery in real time, is now becoming a reality. However, the real disruptive shift is that a new commerce layer is forming where AI can trigger transactions directly. AI tools and APIs are moving toward integrated product recommendations and shoppable features in Large Language Models (LLMs) environments, as seen recently with Shopify or Instacart. AI agents will guide shopping decisions, not just product searches. Soon or later, AI Agents will become true virtual personal shoppers, buying products and services at the best deals and the fastest delivery time.
Retailers must build strong data and tech infrastructure so AI can find, read, and trust their catalogues, ensuring their products remain part of the shopper journey.”
Lars: “I believe the role of AI in Retail Media Networks (RMNs) will be a matter of strategic integration, not introduction. The RMNs that will thrive are those that fully leverage the existing, best-in-class AI already powering their core retail and commerce systems. This commerce-specific intelligence is essential for hyper-personalisation, smart bidding optimisation, and real-time ad relevance. Introducing a separate, external, and potentially costly AI solution risks creating a fragmented customer experience and a conflict with the core AI that already drives purchase propensity and site recommendations. The future of Commerce Media depends on utilising this native AI to deliver the trusted, closed-loop value proposition that uniquely connects the entire shopping journey.”
Ollie: “Measurement remains both the biggest challenge and the most important opportunity. The key will be collaboration, bringing retailers, brands, and agencies together to align on what effectiveness really means. That does not mean uniformity, but rather a shared language and clearer definitions across metrics like ROAS, incrementality, and long-term brand impact. We have focused heavily on performance-based metrics in recent years, but 2026 will require a more holistic understanding of success that connects short-term performance with long-term growth. True transparency and confidence will only come through partnership, shared accountability, and the ability to demonstrate credible value across every part of the funnel.”
Lucie: “To reach a truly transparent and standardised Retail Media measurement, we need the whole industry to align on shared rules and shared language. Common definitions for metrics like ROAS, incrementality, and attribution are the base. IAB Europe is already working on these standards, and this is helping to move the market in the same direction. But standards alone are not enough. Retailers, brands, agencies, and tech partners must work together and align on how data is tracked, calculated, and reported. When reporting frameworks follow the same structure, it becomes easier to compare results across networks. This builds trust and supports healthier growth for everyone.”
Lars: “I recognise that achieving a truly transparent and standardised Retail Media measurement ecosystem is a complex, long-term challenge due to inherent differences in retail purchase cycles and attribution. The most critical, immediate steps involve solving incrementality through AI-driven reporting and moving past broad industry debates to focus on actionable standards within specific vertical sub-categories like grocery and apparel. While full standardisation will not be solved in 2026, collaborative bodies like IAB Europe remain essential to building the trust and comparability required for Retail Media to unlock true brand media budgets.”
Ollie: “My focus for 2026 is integration. Europe has a unique opportunity to show how mature Retail Media can operate when creativity, technology, and partnership come together around shared objectives. I would like to see a more unified approach to planning that connects on site, off site, and in store into one cohesive ecosystem, with consistent measurement and stronger creative ambition. If retailers and brands can move from operating in silos to building shared roadmaps and common success metrics, Europe can lead the way in setting the global standard for connected, accountable, and creative retail media growth.
Lucie: “My wish list for Retail Media in Europe in 2026 starts with stronger data collaboration across retailers supported by tech. Today, each works in a silo, slowing scale and comparison. Better collaboration, along with simpler tech and data offers, would help everyone compete with the big walled gardens and allow off-site to grow faster, reaching more shoppers. I also hope to see wider adoption of real omnichannel strategies where on-site, off-site, store, and CTV work together to make the shopper journey clearer and more effective. Finally, deeper AI partnerships between retailers and tech providers will help prepare for changing shopper behaviours, as AI becomes a personal shopper influencing where and how people buy.”
Lars: “My top wish for Retail Media in Europe in 2026 is the accelerated maturity of advertiser demand. The European market is already on a strong growth trajectory, expanding nearly four times faster than the total digital ad market, but needs continued buy-side commitment to move beyond experimental spend. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy: as retailers adopt RTB-native infrastructure and simplify buying via programmatic channels, and as the industry delivers on standardised measurement and incrementality, the friction historically constraining investment will disappear. This strategic focus on efficiency and transparency is the key to securing the next wave of brand media budgets and sustaining Europe’s massive growth.”
IAB Europe’s Retail & Commerce Media Committee is at the forefront of the Retail Media industry. Members are driving Retail Media growth and shaping the landscape by:
All of the work of the Committee can be found in our Retail Media Hub here.
Find out more about our work and how you can get involved by contacting Marie-Clare Puffett - puffett [at] iabeurope.eu.
As we step into 2026, it’s the perfect moment to set ambitious goals, not just for your business outcomes, but for your own professional growth. If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to level up your skills, there’s no better way to start than by investing in training.
At IAB Europe, our training courses are designed to help digital advertising professionals like you thrive in the rapidly changing and growing world of key areas such as Retail Media and Environmental Sustainability.
Whether you’re new to these areas or looking to deepen your expertise, there’s a learning path for everyone.
Retail Media Essentials - 10:30 - 12:30 CET Thursday, 5th March
This interactive course covers the core concepts you need to know: omnichannel Retail Media strategies, measurement standards, in-store opportunities, and the latest market trends. Perfect for those starting out or wanting to solidify their foundation.
Condensed Course on Environmental Sustainability in Digital Advertising - 10:30 - 13:30 CET Thursday 12th March
This focused, three-hour session delivers a compact yet powerful overview of sustainability in digital advertising. Topics include key environmental frameworks, carbon emissions across the ad ecosystem, and practical strategies to reduce your campaign’s carbon footprint. It’s perfect for professionals of all levels seeking actionable insights in a time-efficient format.
All courses are developed and delivered by experienced industry practitioners, offering interactive sessions, practical frameworks, and actionable takeaways.
Yara Daher
Yara is a Retail Media pioneer who helped launch some of the industry’s first major Retail Media Networks for brands like Walmart,
Target and Best Buy.
Arjen Heida
Arjen is a retail and commerce media leader who drove triple-digit growth as Managing Director of bol Retail Media. He now advises on strategy, capability building, and growth.
Dimitris Beis
Dimitris drives IAB Europe’s initiatives in sustainability, offering educational resources and in-depth emissions analysis while contributing to industry standards for digital channels.
on’t let 2026 be another year where development gets left behind. By resolving to upskill, you’ll not only expand your professional toolkit — you’ll help drive stronger, more strategic outcomes for your organisation in sustainability and Retail Media.
Explore all of our courses here and start your learning journey with IAB Europe Training today.
Members of IAB Europe are eligible for a discount on training courses. Please reach out to the team at communication [at] iabeurope.eu for more information.
In this wrap up post, our Public Policy & Communications Officer, Nina Hamann, shares a year-in-review from the policy team that brings our advocacy work to life. From key political meetings in Brussels to new events, Nina highlights the moments, milestones, and impact that defined our policy agenda this year.
Just like your popular year-in-music recap, our Policy Wrapped 2025 turns our advocacy numbers into a story worth celebrating! This year, we streamed our voice across Brussels, securing 15 meetings with European Parliament staff, Commission officials, and other stakeholders, amplifying industry perspectives where it mattered most. A big hit here was our high-level political meeting with Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath.
We wrote our way through the policy playlist with 48 letters, position papers and formal responses to consultations, analyses and public statements on the EU’s digital rulebook.
Our top tracks included proactive engagement on the Digital Services Act, particularly on a potential code of conduct on online ads, the Digital Fairness Act, and GDPR procedural regulation, ensuring the voice of the digital advertising industry is heard.
We also celebrated two newcomers this year. We launched our very first consumer study on consumer attitudes towards personalised advertising, and hosted the first Advertising Horizons event in Brussels, bringing together policymakers, industry and other stakeholders.
From first chord to final refrain, Policy Wrapped 2025 shows a year of advocacy hits, steady beats of collaboration, and a crescendo of impact. Stay tuned for next year!
17th December 2025, Brussels, Belgium - IAB Europe, the leading association for the digital advertising and marketing industry, has today released Beyond Reach: Mapping the Social Impact of Digital Advertising and Media. This first-of-its-kind report examines how the digital advertising ecosystem currently addresses social sustainability, which social impacts are in scope, and how emerging approaches attempt to measure and manage them across Europe and beyond.
While recent industry attention has focused heavily on the environmental footprint of digital advertising, particularly carbon emissions, this report highlights a critical blind spot: the social impacts of media investment remain largely unmeasured, unstandardised, and undervalued.
Developed by IAB Europe’s Sustainability Standards Committee, and drawing on submissions to a multi-stakeholder Request for Information, a structured mapping of emerging initiatives, and expert interviews, the report provides the clearest picture yet of how the industry is beginning to address social topics such as media plurality, misinformation, accessibility, and diversity across the media supply chain.
Key findings reveal:
Commenting on the findings of the report, IAB Europe’s Data Analyst & Sustainability Lead, Dimitris Beis, said, “The exercise aims to surface areas where the relationship between digital advertising and social considerations has been highlighted by the ecosystem. Social sustainability is broad by definition, and understanding the focus, goals, and limitations of existing projects is key to supporting meaningful progress.”
Steffen Hubert, Director of External Affairs & Sustainability, Seven.One Entertainment Group, representing BVDW & Chair of IAB Europe's Sustainability Standards Committee, also said, “With the Beyond Reach Report, we have laid the groundwork for a shared language on social impact in digital advertising that is aligned with today’s digital realities, ethical standards and social expectations. The next step is to turn this map into interoperable KPIs and simple governance tools, so that public value, risks and opportunities become more visible in everyday media decisions, not only in high-level policy debates.”
You can download a copy of the report on the IAB Europe website here.
The findings and gaps identified in the report will directly inform the Sustainability Standards Committee’s work on social impact in the year ahead, helping to guide the development of practical guidance and collaborative actions for the industry.
For more information on IAB Europe’s sustainability standards work, visit the Sustainability Hub here.
Sponsored by MediaMarktSaturn, the latest series of our Retail Media Roundtable podcast mini-series was recorded live at our Retail Media Impact Summit in Amsterdam!
You can catch up on all of the episodes below:
Episode 1: How Brands Can Win with Data-Driven Campaigns
Episode 2: Celebrating Certification & How it Powers the Future of Retail Media
Episode 3: Where Entertainment Meets Retail Media
Episode 4: Clean Rooms & Commerce Media: The Next Frontier in Measurement
Episode 5: How to Build an Omnichannel Retail Media Network from Scratch
Episode 6: How AI Is Reshaping Strategy, Measurement & Shopper Experience
Episode 7: How Data is the Difference between DOOH and In-Store Retail Media
Episode 8: Building an Off-Site Retail Media Strategy That Works
Episode 9: Unlocking the In-Store Retail Media Ecosystem & Driving Incremental Revenue
Episode 10: Onsite + Offsite, One Brain
On 24th September, over 150 senior European leaders in Retail Media gathered in the heart of Amsterdam for an intensive day of insights, action & collaboration.
The Summit wasn’t about flashy announcements; it was about meaningful conversation and collective momentum. Some of the core topics explored:
Beyond the formal sessions, the Summit also offered networking, breakout workshops, and plenty of space for spontaneous conversations and new partnerships.
Find out more in our wrap-up blog post here, and watch our highlight reel here.
The Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) Version 2.3 was released on 19th June 2025, marking a significant advancement for resolving signalling ambiguity regarding Vendors’ disclosures. TCF v2.3 is already available, supported by updated specifications, implementation guidelines and the TCF Type Script Library iabtcf-es maintained by IAB Tech Lab. We recommend that TCF participants prepare, as the transition period is fast approaching and concludes on 28th February 2026.
Vendors may face uncertainty in specific scenarios where it’s unclear whether they were disclosed to the user.
This distinction is especially important when a vendor intends to process data for Special Purposes under Legitimate Interest (LI) but cannot infer from the signals contained in the TC String whether they were disclosed in the CMP UI to the user.
Although the signalling ambiguity has already been solved for Vendors that solely declare Special Purposes (see 2021 notification here), it had not been solved yet for Vendors that declare both Special Purpose(s) and Purpose(s) under LI.
Under 2.2, Vendors with such declarations could not distinguish between not having been disclosed in the CMP UI and the user having exercised their right to object when the LI bit for their Vendor IDs in the Vendor Legitimate Interest Section is set to 0. They therefore faced uncertainty as to whether they had established a legal basis for processing data in pursuit of Special Purposes under LI - which cannot be objected to within the Framework.
2.3 makes the previously optional disclosedVendors segment mandatory in order to resolve the ambiguity around the representation of LI in the TC string. This enhancement ensures that Vendors can always determine whether they were disclosed in the CMP UI.
For CMPs: CMPs must update their live installations to include the disclosedVendors segment in the TC String. As previously communicated, CMPs should not be required to re-surface the UI to accommodate this change.
CMPs that already made use of the previously optional disclosedVendors segment or kept record of which Vendors were disclosed at the time TC Strings were initially created may update existing TC Strings (please note that the lastUpdated field should not be changed in such a case).
However, CMPs that did not keep a record of which Vendors were disclosed at the time the TC String was initially created should wait for users to renew and/or change the choices they previously made to create a TC String that includes the disclosedVendors segment.
For Vendors: Vendors affected by the signalling ambiguity may already support the disclosedVendors segment as soon as they begin receiving TC Strings that include it.
Post 28 February 2026, all Vendors affected by the signalling ambiguity must recognise and act on the disclosedVendors segment appropriately.
Vendors must verify the bit for their Vendor ID in the disclosedVendors segment, where a 1 indicates they were disclosed, and a 0 indicates they were not disclosed, in order to determine whether they can process data in pursuit of Special Purposes.
Vendors that only declare Special Purposes shall also rely on the disclosedVendors segment to determine if the CMP has established transparency on their behalf instead of relying on the LI bit for their Vendor IDs in the Vendor Legitimate Interest Section.
For Publishers: Publishers that make use of a commercial CMP should not be affected by the transition, as there is no re-surfacing requirement associated with this update. Publishers operating their private CMP should refer to the corresponding guidance.
The TC String structure requires the mandatory Core String to precede all other segments, followed by the disclosedVendors and PublisherTC segments. Because both the disclosedVendors and PublisherTC segments include unique Segment IDs for identification, they may appear in any order after the Core String.
The transition period concludes on 28th February, 2026.
Starting 1st March, 2026:
For any questions about TCF 2.3, please reach out to tcf.compliance [at] iabeurope.eu.
Since launching our newly formed Advertising & Media Committee earlier this year, we have been focused on bringing together experts from across the digital advertising ecosystem to address the commercial and technological developments shaping our industry. As part of this committee, four specialised working groups were created: AI in Advertising, Addressability & Measurement, Connected TV, and Programmatic Advertising.
Today, we are delighted to introduce the new Co-Working Group Leads of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Advertising Working Group, who will help guide our efforts in supporting the industry as it navigates the rapid evolution of AI technologies. Their leadership will be instrumental in assessing emerging opportunities, addressing challenges, and ensuring that AI innovation continues to deliver value to all stakeholders.
We are pleased to welcome:
Tobias Kellner, Industry Lead, Google DACH
Katharina Jäger, Head of Innovation & Technology, BVDW
With extensive expertise in AI-driven innovation, advertising technology, and strategic transformation, they each bring a unique perspective that will help steer the group’s direction and advance meaningful dialogue in this space.
Of his newly appointed position, Tobias, said, "AI is no longer just a future concept; it is the engine currently reshaping how we create value in digital advertising. Navigating the rapid evolution of AI requires more than just individual innovation; it requires industry-wide collaboration. I am honored to lead this working group alongside Katharina at such a pivotal time. Our focus will be on harnessing this potential responsibly to drive real business results and industry advancement."
Katharina also commented on her role, saying, “As Co-Lead of the IAB Europe AI Working Group, I look forward to shaping the value-driven use of AI in digital advertising across Europe. The group plays a crucial role in providing guidance, aligning best practices, and building a shared European framework. I’m excited to support this work and help the industry leverage AI safely, transparently, and effectively.”
We look forward to working closely with them as they help shape the future of this important area of our industry.
We will be unveiling the newly appointed leads for our other Working Groups in the New Year, so keep an eye out for further updates.
For more information on the AI Working Group, Advertising & Media Committee, or the other Working Groups, and how to join, visit our website here or contact the team at communication [at] iabeurope.eu.
About Tobias Kellner
Tobias Kellner leads Google’s industry relations efforts with the German ads ecosystem, in particular its advertising trade bodies. This covers a wide range of topics, from business areas such as AI or privacy to regulatory perspectives and industry standards. Tobias previously held roles in sales and marketing for Google and worked for IBM. He holds various board roles, e.g. at the digital trade body BVDW on AI, or at Bitkom for digital marketing.
About Katharina Jäger
Katharina Jäger is the Head of Innovation & Technology at the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW). In this role, she focuses deeply on emerging technologies, their developments, and future trends. In addition to leading and coordinating projects and initiatives, she serves as an innovation driver and technology expert for the digital economy, the association, and its members.
